


they just committed a crime, gwen

by eyemoji



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: AU, F/F, Heist AU, be gay do crime, im gay, it's pre-goddard and we're gonna cover WHY they hate each other, it's rachel/winona but i refuse to tag it as rachel/kepler, lady kepler, remember that AMA where gabriel said kepler was an open audition for all genders, yeah well i've latched onto lady kepler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 16:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15247356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemoji/pseuds/eyemoji
Summary: andrea nash is living her fourth and best life- stealing from the same tycoons she used to interview as part of her investigative journalism gig, making lots of (mostly illegal) money in the profits from selling said stolen goods, trying to hold off on spendingtoomuch time kissing the woman she's recently taken on as a partner (in literal crime).there's something, though, hidden between the lines of her most recent haul, that's almost enough to make her pause. almost enough to get her thinking. and if something- or someone-were to push her over that edge, it might just be time for life number five after all.





	they just committed a crime, gwen

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to @marinavermilion for validating me through this
> 
> title from this post: http://marinavermilion.tumblr.com/post/175696236462/watching-oceans-8-for-sixth-time-and-i-was

the highway wind whips through andrea nash’s hair as she guns the engine, and she can’t stop the grin that springs to her face. the day is beautiful; the sky as bluest blue as the left eye of the woman riding her shotgun. on the average day, this combination would be more than enough to justify the infectiousness of andrea’s thrilled happiness, but there’s a little something extra thrumming through her veins and the air and, indeed, whatever’s keeping her connected to the lovely lady sitting next to her, whose eyebrows are raised over her sunglasses, lips twitching at andrea’s enthusiasm.

 

that something extra might have to do with the millions of dollars worth of rocket plans stuffed into the trunk of their 1957 Thunderbird.

 

“we planning on stopping anytime soon?” asks the woman, nails crinkling the soft paper of a pack of gum as she unwraps a piece. her voice has just a hint of a southern drawl, the words drawn out just enough to put your skin on edge if you didn’t know who you were dealing with.

 

“i was thinking we’d stop for lunch in a bit. why; you hungry?”

 

the woman rolls her eyes. “after that absolute shitshow? you bet.”

 

“what, winona, afraid of a little heat?” andrea sneaks a glance over at her, eyes brimming with mirth.

 

winona snorts. 

 

“maybe in your dreams, nash.” she crinkles her way through the pack to offer up another tiny silver-wrapped rectangle. “gum?”

 

andrea doesn’t move to take it, instead opening her mouth and tilting her head towards winona, who sighs, but moves to unwrap the piece anyways. she pops it into andrea’s mouth, which promptly closes.

 

winona pulls her finger out, inspects the saliva covering it for a second, then wrinkles her nose, wiping it on the crumpled napkin stuffed into the cupholder.

 

“gross.”

 

“that’s not what you said last night.”

 

“mm, nash, i’m really impressed with the power of your imagination. maybe we  _ should _ get those delta waves checked.”

 

andrea nudges her. 

 

“ _ maybe _ you should check on potential buyers.”

 

“oh, but that’s  _ your _ job, miss nash, exploiter of illegal internet users, master of blackmail.”

 

“use my phone. here.” 

 

she tosses it into winona’s lap. winona unlocks it (she’d long figured out the password) and scrolls idly through the pages upon pages of apps. her nails, thumbs chewed, others clipped short, barely make a sound as she taps the screen.

 

“has anyone ever told you you ought to clean this device up? i couldn’t find what i was looking for even if i was actually trying.”

 

“there’s a search function, if you’re feeling up for a challenge.”

 

“the mundanities of the technology of the masses are beneath us, miss nash.”

 

“what do you have again? a blackberry, isn’t it?”

 

“does the job.”

 

winona blows a small bubble with her gum and lets it pop to punctuate her statement. andrea frowns slightly at the corresponding  _ smack! _

 

winona’s resistance to navigating smartphones in this instance means that tonight, andrea will be up finding buyers on the Deep Web, and possibly some more conventional routes as well (she’s a single seller, not established in the aboveground field, and the place they’ve stolen from doesn’t take well to being robbed, more than most.) the plans they’ve stolen detail schematics for more versatile, efficient engines than those used in the most advanced airborne vehicles on all markets, and the profits they’ll make, if collected even in part, could be more than enough for them both to lead comfortable lives of their own.

 

not that that information makes this anywhere near a one-time job. no, andrea nash is living her fourth and best life, and her second score with winona by her side is only cementing her commitment to thieving from the tech titans she used to write to death. raw information only went so far, she’d realized, and shocking news didn’t effect as much action as it perhaps should have. besides, after all the careers and spheres she’d dipped her toes into, there was something to be said for spending her time kissing women and stealing secrets.

 

they pull into the drive-thru another hour later (well actually, andrea holds the car in the parking lot of a nearby upscale restaurant where its soft blue and vintage silhouette don’t look nearly as out of place, which normally she would take a certain vicious pleasure in but in their current state of containing-stolen-goods is a red flag she’d rather not set off, and winona walks up to the window in a way this sleepy highway-by city still allows) and the salty smell of the potatoes against the rich tones of the beans against the freshness of the lettuce is like a kick from heaven to andrea’s gut. she pulls a face but doesn’t protest as winona insists on eating in the car, and they split a lemonade in the hot sun as the car roars through dust and kicks up clouds taller than the building they robbed the night before.

 

it’s nice.

 

“have the rest. you’ll need it,” advises winona, the lengthening of her vowels making the prediction sound much more ominous than it portends. she presses the cup into her hand while toeing her own shoes off.

 

the tang of the lemon is tart against andrea’s tongue long after the lemonade is finished, two used straws rattling around in the cup every time the car hits a bump. (for maybe two weeks after winona had come onboard, they’d shared one straw per drink, but andrea quickly found that a chewed straw is unbearable in all the worst ways, and winona claimed in turn that she didn’t like the taste of rachel’s lipstick on her drink.) the highway stretches empty for miles on either end, and andrea allows herself a couple moments to reflect. inevitably, her eyes shift over to winona.

 

winona, who is slumped against her side of the car, positioned to gaze out over the quickly-passing scenery. there’s a soft wind blowing, now, and it tousles her hair lightly in a way andrea could never hope to replicate. at closer glance, it’s clear that somewhere along the line from kansas to kentucky, she’d fallen asleep, the sunglasses sliding down her nose working to keep from betraying that small suggestion of vulnerability closed eyes so often give out. looking at the soft rise and fall of her chest, andrea is reminded of just how little she knows about the woman. she doesn’t know her last name. doesn’t know what she’s left. doesn’t know if she prefers wine or whiskey or something in between. doesn’t know if disinterest is her usual reaction or if, by some wild spot of sinister coincidence, there’s something she knows that she isn’t telling andrea. doesn’t know if she can trust her. sometimes she regrets having her on at all. she’d picked her up at a bar in texas, had meant to spend the night and get out, but things had gone awry and a moment of revelation had made her realize that the woman’s charm and surprisingly informed knowledge of guns, other people, and how to pick locks made her more than a useful asset.

so instead of sleeping with her, she’d asked her on.

 

her gaze flickers back up to winona’s lips, half-parted in sleep.    
_ yeah, definitely regretting that one now. _

 

andrea sighs, turns her eyes back on the road. there’s only about another half hour before they reach their hotel for the night, before she’ll have to shake winona awake to drag herself up to their room. she might as well enjoy the peace while it lasts.

 

-

 

she makes her last stop of the night for gas once the sun’s gone down. the station is automatic and deserted, which is what gives her the confidence to indulge herself in one of her secrets; she knows it’s a foolish thing to do, out in the open. in the hurry of the heist, she’d stuffed one piece of paper into the slit she’d once cut in the pocket of her jacket. she takes it out now. she hasn’t told winona about this particular sheet, and she intends to keep it to herself, at least for the time being. there’s something about it… 

 

after making sure the gas pump is set to automatic, she checks quickly from side to side (head still, only eyes moving) to confirm she’s alone before unfolding the paper all the way. it’s quality diagram paper- blue, lined on both axes, sturdy yet translucent- the only other examples she’s seen of something like this are lying in the trunk of her car. but the subject drawn on the paper, with its measurements written out in meticulous handwriting, each part (some she recognizes, some she’s heard of, some mystify her) painstakingly labeled, is  _ not _ an engine, or a rocket, or anything else that might be relevant to the family of spaceflight.

 

no, andrea realizes, eyes widening as her old expose journalism fangs rear their ugly heads and begin tearing away at the thin layer of confusion sprouting from  _ what should be possible _ shrouding the reality of what the blueprint is showing her, what’s drawn and studied and possibly tested on the paper is unquestionably--

 

the gas pump finishes feeding the Thunderbird with a sudden  _ bump _ and andrea crushes the paper into a fist as she looks up, startled. her heart is beating a smidge faster despite the instant cool relief that floods her when she realizes the source of the noise. she finishes up with the electronic attendant faster than she would have otherwise, and hauls ass back onto the road with a speed most recently seen utilized from the inside of a company vault. it’s only when they’re thirteen miles out from that ghost of a gas station that she thinks to check in on winona:

 

she’s barely moved; her sunglasses are hanging from her ears and it’s easy to see she’s clearly deep in sleep, untouched.

 

andrea breathes a sigh of relief.

**Author's Note:**

> not all is as it seems...
> 
>  
> 
> (justasmalltownai on tum.)


End file.
